Russia or the Deep State: Who’s Really Undermining ‘Democracy’?

In politics, timing is everything. So what does that say about the deep state timing its indictment to break only days before President Donald Trump was to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin?

By AFP Staff

On July 13, three days before President Donald Trump was scheduled to hold his historic face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, the Justice Department announced a grand jury had indicted a dozen Russian intelligence officers “for conspiring to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.” Of course, the mainstream media worked itself into a lather over the indictment of Russian spies who, realistically, will never be brought to justice. Missed in all of the rumpus, however, was the staging of the indictment, which was cynically timed to undermine a sitting president who openly admitted that the goal of the top-level meeting was to seek peace with a major, nuclear-armed foreign power.

It’s worth noting that the charges were not brought by the special counsel investigating possible Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. Instead, it was brought by the Justice Department’s National Security Division—the deep state—and announced by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.

Rosenstein, who lords over special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of possible Russian collusion with Trump’s campaign staff, was nothing more than a useful idiot in the announcement, seeking to take a swipe at Trump.

Of late, Rosenstein has come under increasing pressure for allowing Mueller to run wild and charge individuals with crimes unrelated to his purview. Earlier this month, congressional Democrats and never-Trump Republicans just barely fended off calls in Congress to impeach Rosenstein for failing at his job.

According to last Friday’s indictment, prosecutors acknowledged that the Russians were working on their own—as spies do—and that no Americans knew they were communicating with Russians.

“The conspirators corresponded with several Americans through the Internet. There is no allegation in the indictment that the Americans knew they were communicating with Russian intelligence officers,” noted the press release issued by Rosenstein’s office on the indictment.

The charges only relate to spying work done by the Russians. They include:

Count One charges 11 defendants for conspiring to access computers without authorization, and to cause damage to those computers, in connection with efforts to steal documents and release them in order to interfere with the election.

Counts Two through Nine charge eleven defendants with aggravated identity theft by employing the usernames and passwords of other persons to commit computer fraud.

Count Ten charges the eleven conspirators with money laundering by transferring cryptocurrencies through a web of transactions in order to purchase computer servers, register domains, and make other payments in furtherance of their hacking activities, while trying to conceal their identities and their links to the Russian government.

Count Eleven charges two defendants for a separate conspiracy to access computers without authorization, and to cause damage to those computers, in connection with efforts to infiltrate computers used to conduct elections.

Finally, a forfeiture allegation seeks the forfeiture of property involved in the criminal activity.

No one should be naïve enough to think that countries do not spy on each other and attempt to influence politics in foreign powers, especially among rival nations. In fact, the U.S. government is probably the most skilled in that, having openly and brazenly meddled in the elections of dozens of countries and even toppled several over the course of the last few decades.

Russia is by no means innocent in this. The Kremlin has most likely been trying to influence U.S. politics for many years, which begs the question, why indict Russian spies operating on Russian soil just before the leaders of the U.S. and Russia are set to meet if for no other reason than to send a stark warning to these two men that the deep state will not stand by while the heads work to bridge the divide and promote peace between the two nations.

In a related news item, Putin did drop a bomb on the deep state that few media outlets have picked up on.

During a press conference, Putin unloaded on the U.S., saying that Washington should investigate how U.S. intelligence helped a billionaire fleece the Russian government and get out of paying $1.5 billion in taxes and then turn over some of that money—$400 million—to the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Putin then invited Mueller’s team to come to Russia to further its investigation so long as the U.S. allows Russia to look into the billionaire’s transactions.

In other words, while Russia is accused of mocking and trolling ignorant American voters, the U.S. deep state directly funded the campaign of a presidential candidate, which it preferred over the other.

So who really is undermining the United States democratic republic here?